Modern mice pose a challenge for medical research

The environment in which laboratory mice are reared can drastically alter the results of experiments and may have major implications for medical research around the world, according to new Australian data presented today at a meeting of The International Behavioral Neuroscience Society.

Mice have traditionally been housed in open cages where pheromones, chemical cues in urine, and sounds could be exchanged between animals across cages.

Modern housing is based on a system of individually ventilated cages that block sounds and micro-filter the air entering each cage.

Dr. Tim Karl, at Neuroscience Research Australia, is studying the effects of open cages versus individually ventilated cages on the behaviours of genetically altered mice used in schizophrenia research (neuregulin 1 mutant mice).

Our research so far shows that keeping mice in individually ventilated cages affects the way genes impact upon schizophrenia-like behaviour, making these mice less valid for schizophrenia research, says Dr. Karl.

Furthermore, animals housed in individually ventilated cages respond differentially from mice reared in open cages when given psychotropic drugs and this will have important consequences for pharmacological experiments.

The bulk of medical research is done using genetically altered mice. Ours is the first study to show an impact of this new housing form on a genetic mouse model for brain disorders and highlights the need for caution when comparing data between labs that house mice differently, Dr. Karl concluded.

Laboratory rodents such as mice and rats are widely used in studies of diseases, drug research and patterns of thinking and problem-solving because they are easy to breed, can be altered genetically, and the outcomes of experiments can be extrapolated to explain certain patterns in humans.

Related Stories

Researchers at the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus have found the brains of mice used in laboratories worldwide can be profoundly affected by the type of cage they are kept in, a breakthrough that may require ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Purdue University scientists found that mice raised in cages may relieve stress with behaviors associated with mice in the wild. And for researchers using lab mice, this may mean that by allowing ...

Dr Anthony Hannan, along with Dr Caitlin McOmish, Emma Burrows and colleagues, characterised a genetically altered mouse and discovered that it had schizophrenia-like behaviours, including learning and memory problems, the ...

An Australian study has flagged an important truth for the medical research community. Like their human counterparts, male and female mice are not only different, their respective genetic responses can often be the reverse ...

Physical exercise is known to be good for the aging brain, but what about mental stimulation" Does enrichment that helps older people work well for the young and middle aged, or do they need something else" A report in ...

Recommended for you

New assays can detect malaria parasites in human blood at very low levels and might be helpful in the campaign to eradicate malaria, reports a study published this week in PLOS Medicine. An international team l ...

Gastric bypass and similar stomach-shrinking surgeries are a popular option for obese patients looking to lose weight or treat type 2 diabetes. While the surgeries have been linked to a decreased risk in many types of cancers, ...

Two hearts, said Keats, can beat as one; but a study led by Weizmann Institute scientists in collaboration with researchers from the University of Pennsylvania shows that sometimes a single heart muscle cell ...

New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine has shed light on how chronic stress and obesity may contribute to type 2 diabetes. The findings point the finger at an unexpected biological perpetrator – ...

Collaborating with scientists from New York, Toronto, and Tokyo, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have devised two methods for using stem cells to generate the type of neurons that help regulate ...

Treatment for painful episodes of blood vessel obstruction in sickle cell anemia is currently limited to controlling pain, but an investigational therapy might be able to interfere with the underlying cause of these events, ...

User comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.